ed a quiet club in Ivy Lane, wrote that
fine paraphrase of Juvenal, "The Vanity of Human Wishes," and brought
out, with dubious success, under Garrick's auspices, his tragedy of
_Irene_. In 1750, he commenced the _Rambler_. In 1752, the year his wife
died, he laboured on at the Dictionary. In 1753, he became acquainted
with Bennet Langton. In 1754 he wrote the life of his early patron,
Cave, who died that year. In 1755, the great Dictionary, begun in 1747,
was at last published, and Johnson wrote that scathing letter to the
Earl of Chesterfield, who, too late, thrust upon him the patronage the
poor scholar had once sought in vain. In 1756, the still struggling man
was arrested for a paltry debt of L5 18_s._, from which Richardson the
worthy relieved him. In 1758, when he began the _Idler_, Johnson is
described as "being in as easy and pleasant a state of existence as
constitutional unhappiness ever permitted him to enjoy."

While the Dictionary was going forward, "Johnson," says Boswell, "lived
part of the time in Holborn, part in Gough Square (Fleet Street); and he
had an upper room fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in
which he gave to the copyists their several tasks. The words, partly
taken from other dictionaries and partly supplied by himself, having
been first written down with space left between them, he delivered in
writing their etymologies, definitions, and various significations. The
authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had
marked the passages with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could
be easily effaced. I have seen several of them in which that trouble had
not been taken, so that they were just as when used by the copyists. It
is remarkable that he was so attentive to the choice of the passages in
which words were authorised, that one may read page after page of his
Dictionary with improvement and pleasure; and it should not pass
unobserved, that he has quoted no author whose writings had a tendency
to hurt sound religion and morality."

To this account Bishop Percy adds a note of great value for its lucid
exactitude. "Boswell's account of the manner in which Johnson compiled
his Dictionary," he says, "is confused and erroneous. He began his task
(as he himself expressly described to me) by devoting his first care to
a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in
their language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote he drew